


The Garden of Creation

by Lirriel



Series: Within the Over-Soul [3]
Category: The Yogscast
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Virtual Reality
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-01
Updated: 2015-05-13
Packaged: 2018-03-26 16:04:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,237
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3856684
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lirriel/pseuds/Lirriel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>With the rise of the enderbane, the world of Oversoul has been thrown into turmoil. The keepers of the world come face-to-face with their enemy for the first time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Tending the Field of Elysium

**Author's Note:**

> Oh, wow. u_u This ended up blowing up to proportions I did not expect, so in the end I chose to cut it in half. Thank you again to everyone who commented and left kudos; they are so incredibly helpful, especially after the rather strenuous week I just had at work, lol. So lots of love for all of you <3
> 
> (upped to mature just to be safe)

Perhaps it wasn’t her worst idea to date. Perhaps, at some point, she had made a more grievous error. But, whether such an error existed or not, Nanosounds could not recall such an occurrence.

She had originally logged on to the world of Oversoul after an exhausting week of meeting last-minute deadlines and editing video and audio on a crappy old laptop that wasn’t even powerful enough to wirelessly link into the fiber-optic cables that riddled England’s underbelly. Any time not spent editing was spent filming or conducting interviews and there had been a few nights of wild parties that Kim had regretted and Nanosounds regretted now. Good public relations, yes; not so good in her ongoing quest to discover Oversoul’s secrets.

And she had paid for her lapse in questing. Just a few days prior had found Kim at lunch, rifling through a flurry of articles that had come out in response to the discovery of a secret class in Oversoul: the enderbane. The player who had found it was an enigma, unattached to guilds or arena teams, his number of posts on the game’s massive forum reading at a flat zero. His real name was, of course, hidden behind layers of privacy laws and sticky tape that would likely unravel eventually but not soon.

But there had been a silver lining to the entire fiasco. One ex-employee of the popular MMO had admitted to Kim, over a few shots that steadily grew into a great many over the course of their evening together, that the developers had never made any plans to include hidden classes or hybrid classes and that even the limited edition class, the brewmeister, had been created on the game’s whim. But he had been drunk, and at that point her interview wasn’t technically authorized or official anymore, conducted off-the-clock.

It had driven her to finish everything in her lap work-related, though, and she had crawled into bed on Friday bone-tired, having cleared out the entirety of her Saturday and still trying to convince herself she wasn’t obsessed, she just wanted to have _something_ to show for her efforts.

Which brought Nanosounds to the Diyu server, after a terrifying transfer that had involved a shrieking woman, intoxicating elixirs and a numbness to her tongue she wasn’t entirely sure would ever dissolve. She had arrived in the city of Wuhan, closest to the canyon that had once existed but now no longer did, an impressive anomaly that she couldn’t quite pin down as a “special event” concocted by the developers.

In the brightness of day, Wuhan was like many cities on the Diyu server, supposedly. It was grim and hardworking, cyborgs mixing with robots, some NPCs appearing fully human until their pupils dilated, a tiny camera contrasting her appearance against the mugshots of local player-killers, PvPers who got their kicks outside of an arena. The constant clicking and whirring of machines both large and small gave the city a voice, and to Nanosounds it sounded almost playful, rambunctious, hinting about the transformation that would overcome it at night.

She had only managed a few steps out of the terminal before trouble found her.

As a flux oracle, Nanosounds was used to being stared at. The difference in these three was, when she met their gazes squarely, her face impassive, they continued to stare. And when she tried to step around them, lowering her own eyes because she wasn’t in the mood for chattering with newbies, awestruck by the purple that laced her arms and face and shoulders and calves, a hand closed around her bicep, insistent if not rough.

She stiffened, and then she took their appearances in, finally, because if she was about to die to a group of player-killers, she would make sure she remembered their faces for later.

The one holding onto her, the tallest, was dressed in the garments of of a warlock, what specialization she still couldn’t say, but a few weeks of playing had taught her how to decipher some of the details that typically made up an adventurer’s costume. She recognized his attire vaguely, something of Indian nature, and while it likely would have appeared silly on either of his comrades, it came across as intimidating on him, projecting an aura of power. Draped across one shoulder hung a fine blue sash, stretching the length of his—sherwani, the Oversoul glossary provided, ever helpful—yes, a sherwani, though typically a bridegroom's garment, it had been adopted and modified by the game as so many other types of attire had been. Flecks of cream ran up the length of the burgundy top and his pants were of the same fine blue fabric the length of cloth had been cut from.

Her eyes had drifted down to his shoes, intent on soaking in everything, but a sharp wrench of her arm made her temper flare. For the briefest of moments, the vision in her wrecked, wretched, corrupted right eye blurred and everything swam, and she shut both eyes tightly, frustration at the flux oracle’s useless handicap mixing with anger toward the trio.

“Jesus, Smith, that’s no way to treat our guest,” came a confidently disapproving voice, and she snapped her eyes open again, seeking the voice’s owner. The shortest of the three was as richly garbed as the one who held her, but his was an outfit she was more used to seeing. It was a plague doctor’s garb, a class she had almost picked and likely would have picked if not for its categorization underneath the cleric class. The black coat, black gloves, black everything, was set in stark contrast against the red-brown leather that made up the mask, the beak detailed iron and the bulging eye sockets equally made, holding tinted glass that merely reflected Nano’s appearance back at her as the plague doctor stepped closer, peering at her through one eye and then the other.

“To be honest, I was expecting a bit more,” he said, and his beak clicked once in dissatisfaction. The beaked man turned to the last of three, the only one not to speak or draw her ire and said softly, “Think she’ll still be useful, Ross?”

This one, this “Ross”, was dressed the plainest of the three, just a rogue’s outfit: dyed leather and cloth and some chainmail sleeves for flexibility in swinging the blades undoubtedly hidden in the scabbards that covered his body, strung across his chest, his hips, and his back and held there by strips of more dyed leather. His blue eyes met her own mismatched brown-violet and he said, sounding almost bored, “Seems like she’ll work out well enough.”

“Well all right then,” the shortest one said, and he clacked his beak, and he hissed a bird hiss before abruptly wrenching his head around to fix Nanosounds in the center of one glass eye. “You hear that, sunshine? You do what we tell you, and by the end of this we’ll all be _rolling_.”

The emphasis on the word _rolling_ earned a snicker from the one holding her, and Ross smiled, a weak twitch of the lips that was gone before she could get a good look.

“And what do you want me to do?” she asked, looking pointedly from her arm clenched in the tall one’s grip to his face, trying to will him to release her. And he did, suddenly and swiftly, and she staggered a step away, wary but not running. Not yet.

“Found a dungeon in Zhengzhou and need you to do your fluxy witch tricks,” the beaked man said, and he flapped his hands in an interpretation of exactly what that entailed. “Can't find the rest and ours got burnt out, you know. Doesn’t want to play anymore after he—”

“Ate shit!” Ross supplied almost jubilantly, cheerfully, the way one might talk about the weather.

“Damnit Ross,” the shortest hissed out and clacked his beak in agitation.

Then the tallest one got into it, wrapping a heavy arm around Nanosounds that refocused all her attention into staying up and away from him, not dragged closer the way he so obviously wanted to. “What Trott’s saying in that bumbling buffoonish way of his is that Ross, well, Ross just got a bit excited and suddenly old Ashy boy was on the ground, and Trottimus was too drunk off his ass to help him like a good plague doctor should.” Then he gritted his teeth, an alarming expression when Nanosounds was still in his grip, and she struggled even as he hissed out, “You fucking hear me, Trott, you little prick? We ain't got no fluxy fucker now because of you! _Useless_!”

“Ah,” Ross breathed out, and his blue eyes were suddenly human in their concern. “We’re just playing now, no need to get upset. Smith, let her go.”

Nanosounds was freed, the heavy weight of the man’s arm disappearing, and she breathed deeply, trying to push down the urge to draw her guandao then and there, damned be the consequences of fighting in a neutral zone. But Smith’s face had lost its vitriol, replaced by an easy, friendly grin, and the plague doctor released a sigh that was completely normal and not punctuated by the clack of his metal beak.

“Sorry, ‘bout that,” Smith said. “We’re not actually trying to rough you up, we’re just playing a bit.”

“Yeah, it’s an act,” Trottimus added, as if repetition of the statement would make it true. Which, maybe it was; Nanosounds wasn’t feeling particularly trusting. “But we do need a flux oracle to help us with the Tian Tower. Or Heaven Tower or Skytower or however you want to say it.”

Nanosounds arched an eyebrow.

“You’re the only one we've seen since Nathan stopped playing,” Ross said, quietly, as if that explained everything.

“Jesus, Ross, don’t make it seem like we’re desperate!” The act of sincerity was gone as Trottimus turned to scold his companion, his beak clacking once, twice, thrice at the end of his sentence, added emphasis that desperation was a _bad thing_.

Nanosounds giggled and tilted her head, making a decision quickly. The Tian Tower sounded like a dungeon, a place she could easily earn levels, and the three in front of her obviously worked well together, a camaraderie between them that bounced off insults laced with friendly barbs. And, more importantly, they knew a flux oracle. Someone who no longer played, yes, but it was her first real start at something that didn't involve peddling booze.

“All right boys,” she told them, “let’s go to this tower and knock it _down_!” Her rough enthusiasm was met with an approving, “Ooh, _saucy_ ,” from Smith.

The interim between their setting out and their arrival at the tower was filled with talk. Most of it was a variety of insults, and Nanosounds quickly learned their group dynamics. Ultimately Trottimus, despite being the one most often targeted for verbal abuse, was the brains behind their group, and he outlined clearly for Nanosounds what she would be required to do within the tower and then repeated his instructions a second time, as if used to being ignored. Not that her role was particularly clear, even with all his explaining.

Destroy the foundation of the tower, destabilizing it long enough for them to skip straight to the boss fight that waited at the end, skipping hours of trash mobs, because the tower was a grind, specifically designed to test a player’s fortitude. Nanosounds didn't think she could do that, had never been able to make a dent in the landscape that wasn’t cosmetic in nature, but she didn't share her doubts with the trio.

Upon reaching the base of the tower, Nanosounds could only tilt her head back, staring up at the massive structure that rose up into the clouds, its blue roof tiles blending in with the sky. Like most of the Chinese architecture that inspired the server of Diyu, its numerous levels were supported by red pillars, but the exterior walls were a glossy black, and Nanosounds remembered, a small footnote in her buzzing mind, that black encouraged the gods to descend.

The entrance was as grandiose and as impressive in size as the rest of the building. A pair of golden, five-toed Chinese dragons crawled up its borders, their heads resting condescendingly upon the top of the door frame. Smith, or Alsmiffy as he was occasionally called (though both he and Trott seemed to have numerous variations upon their name and Alsmiffy slid through her lips better than Smith), stepped forward first, seemingly unimpressed by the large doors which did seem to shrink when compared to his giant-like height. Perhaps his arrogance outmatched the dragons’, for the doors swung open with a metal grinding sound before he could even lift his hand to knock or push or whatever plan he had prepared to get them inside.

“Easy,” he informed them loftily over his shoulder, and he crossed the threshold with a satisfied swagger to his step, Trott rolling his eyes and hurrying after the other man. Ross walked side-by-side with Nanosounds, but he paused at the entranceway and gave the two dragons a glare filled with ice before he continued on. Nanosounds looked up as well, to see what he was looking at, and the dragons’ jaws gaped wide, tongues lolling in some private, statues-only joke. As she stepped inside and the doors began to close behind them, she tried to remember if they had been laughing when her group first arrived.

The inside of the tower was simply an empty room. An empty room, an endlessly long ceiling stretching up into the distance, and no entrances or exits or any sort of doorway excluding the one they had just entered through. The only real decoration came from the floor, its tiles an interlocking mosaic depicting a coal-black eastern dragon, five-toed and clutching its life pearl close to its chest as it rampaged against four blots of color, one red, two black—though one was striped blue—and one burgundy.

Nanosounds had leaned in closer, trying to figure out what sort of figures were depicted, when a small click went off. She was suddenly aware of a flurry of activity: Ross yanking out a pair of scimitars from the scabbards that sat against his thighs, Trott popping a corked bottle and smelling its contents, and Alsmiffy rolling his shoulders, lazy confidence pouring from him.

A heavy weight slammed into the ground, and the floor quaked.

“Here’s round one!” Alsmiffy whooped from behind her. Then a hard hand was dragging her backward, even as steel-shod hooves slammed into the tile in front of her, kicking up sparks as the stone crumbled, fragile beneath the weight of a mechanical centaur.

“Silly bugger,” Ross’s voice murmured in her ear, “You and your lot are meant to stay in the back.” Then he pushed her behind him, gently, far more gentler than how he’d handled her shoulder and glared at the monster that rose up on its hind legs, pawing at the sky with its fore even as a shrieking, computer-like squeal escaped its throat, its face an unmoving alien mask that vaguely resembled human features. The entire body was metal, dusky-dark chrome with smoothly-fitted joints, the only sharpness to be found in the human parts: from the elbow down, the machine’s human limbs slimmed down into slender blades, katana that were double-edged.

But it came no closer, still pawing at the sky with Ross’s eyes leveled on it, icy blue on its steel gray hide. Nanosounds stared at the stand-off between the two a moment longer, then Trott’s beak shoved itself over her shoulder and she flinched as he hissed out, “Find the doorway, we’ll keep it preoccupied.”

“What doorway?” Nanosounds asked, only to have her voice covered by more shrill squeals from the centaur before it charged at Ross, sword hands slashing at him. The man didn't dodge; he simply disappeared. The robot shrieked in fury, shaking its calm, humanoid face and twisting its upper body as if its man and horse bits could disengage each other and become two new creatures.

“Phase two pretty soon,” Alsmiffy called, and with a wave of his hand the beast was hovering. Then he grunted, jaw set and jerked his hand harder; this time the centaur flew, its horse legs pistoning like gunfire even as it slammed into one of the tower walls, the structure groaning in protest. “Jesus, it weighs a ton!”

“What the hell is phase two?” she shouted this time, materializing her guandao with a sweep of her hand, the polearm flickering into solidity above her open palm and dropping down into her grip. Both Trott and Smith had to pull back as she swept it in an arc around her, feeling as confused and useless as she had with the lindworm.

“Find the doorway! For christ’s sakes, find the doorway—it’s really that simple—!” Trott was babbling, his voice tight with raw anger and worry. He was still babbling, spluttering, trying to explain, but she just couldn’t understand— _What doorway!?_ —she wanted to fight, wanted to help—and then Ross howled, and they both jerked their heads around, the battle suddenly remembered.

One of the katana had skewered Ross right through the shoulder blade and pinned him to the floor. Even as they watched, it broke the brittle blade off inside him and gently placed one massive hoof square in his chest, holding him down even as it raised its other arm for a perfect neck slice. Alsmiffy was collapsed on the floor a few steps behind the pair, his blue sash now stained red from his own wounds.

Her mind went black and red-hot rage filled her belly, the same rage that Trott must feel; the absolute _agony_ that Ross must be in, his face ashen and his eyelids fluttering, red-rimmed blue eyes starting to cloud over because the wound was straight through and katana were designed to slice, severing nerves and flesh and flaying muscle from the bone, and he was bleeding everywhere—!

Suddenly the world was double-layered. Nanosounds shook her head impatiently, not here, not now, don’t film over now, her guandao shaking in her hand, but suddenly she could see the seams, the lines of netcode that made up everything and she _saw_ the door, a shortcut that must have once been small, now grown large with continual use, made by the ones who came before.

But that wasn’t important right now. Her eyes shifted back to the centaur, and she saw the heart of it, the parts of it that were needed, a carefully-balanced creature that would tear apart with one little slip, the way all pieces of code did. Destroy one small, essential piece, and the entire thing was worthless.

And she understood, as she ran forward and as she cut into it, cut through, cut off that one, essential piece, that this was why the game fought back against the flux oracles. The centaur shrieked a final death cry, but it was already folding in upon itself, its voice hanging upon itself, folding over, ending in a plaintive dial tone from bygone days.

Nanosounds didn't know how she felt.

“What the fuck was that?” The words came from Ross, edged with pain even as the centaur began to dissolve, useless coding rolling in upon itself the way normally-defeated monsters never did.

“I know where the doorway is,” Nanosounds told him, told them, pushing the strange feeling aside.

Trottimus kneeled beside Ross, but the man waved him away impatiently. “Go help Smiffy, you twat; he’s the one bleeding out.” The plague doctor’s beak clattered, but Trottimus did as he was told, rolling the psionic (because that was the only class that could just _lift_ people up without wind or water or anything) over and beginning to sew together a slice that had split his thigh wide open and ran behind his knee.

Nanosounds went to Ross. He had managed to struggle into a sitting position, half-slumped forward, the blade still jutting out from both ends of his shoulder. She reached up, wanting to help somehow but he stopped her. “Oi, don’t make me bleed out. Just wait a bit and Trott’ll take care of me in a second. Useless git,” he added under his breath, and she forced out a laugh.

His eyes were on Trottimus and Alsmiffy, the latter now able to stand, though the plague doctor was watching with what Nanosounds assumed was a critical eye. She kneeled there for a moment beside Ross, uncertain of what to say and still feeling peculiar when he said, softly, “Good work, by the way. I've never seen that type of move before. Must have been some balancing done since Ashman played.” Then, finally, he turned to her, his lips tweaking into a smile, “And thank fuck for that. Flux oracles are the biggest deadweight I've ever seen. Absolutely useless outside of those horde challenges!”

Then he was quiet again, and Trottimus was beside them, Alsmiffy walking along behind him, looking a bit out of sorts but much better. “Gonna have to take that out, mate,” was the doctor’s cool assessment, before he squatted down beside Ross and paused, before kneeling completely. “Lay down, ya big lug.”

Ross barely had time to do so before the plague doctor’s thick leather glove was wrapped firmly around the blade’s top edge and he had begun to tug, his free hand holding Ross’s chest down with surprising strength.

The flux oracle hissed in sympathy as Ross gritted his teeth, growling out, “That’s right, don’t give me some fucking alcohol or anything, you prick. Not even a stick to bite on!”

Alsmiffy, standing at Ross’s feet with, was recovered enough now to grin and add loudly, “Ooh, mate, he wants your stick in his mouth!” which turned into a yelp of pain when Ross booted him.

Nanosounds could only say in bafflement, “You three, I swear,” before moving off to inspect the door she had found, trying to convince herself she was only moving away to give them privacy and not because the thought of that sharp blade being pulled through ravaged muscle was something she couldn't handle. Now conscious of what she was meant to search for and what exactly it was that she used, she found it easy to slip between the double-layered world and the regular world. Everything had pieces of netcode, and it would be so easy, so simple, to just tug a few strands out here, and there, and—”There, finished, you big baby.”

When Nanosounds looked back, Trott gave her the all-clear sign as Alsmiffy helped Ross to his feet, both stumbling into each other like a pair of school boys, pushing and shoving and being rowdy. Ross’s shoulder was healed, the only reminder of his grisly wound being the hole in his clothing which now showed muscled, pale skin, lightly freckled. Not that Nanosounds really cared about freckles; she was more interested in why Alsmiffy’s pants had healed but his shirt hadn’t.

She watched a moment longer then turned to Trott. “Found the door,” she said, as if that made up for Ross being injured.

He eyed her, then clicked his beak. “That’s new. That thing you did. Never seen that before.”

“What kinda cheats you pulling, girly?” Alsmiffy asked, one arm wrapped around Ross’s head in a badly done chokehold she itched to correct.

“Just a patch done by the devs,” Ross answered breezily before hooking his leg behind Alsmiffy’s, upsetting his balance and his hold around the other’s neck. They both went down, and Trott sighed in dramatic disappointment.

“Enough playing around, lads,” he said. “Let’s get this done.”

He looked at Nanosounds expectantly and she reached out with one hand, painfully aware that visibly she was just grasping air but in the other world, she tugged at a strand of netcode. It gave easily, the way it likely had so many times before, and she closed off her other sight completely as once more the ground beneath them rumbled.

“Up we go!”

At first, Nanosounds was only aware of the floor shaking. Then there was a surge beneath her, and her stomach dropped. Her eyes darted, searching for the enemy that would likely attack them. But there were none, just the flash of light given off by windows they flew by, the floor carrying them up like an elevator. There was the same click she had heard before, before the centaur attacked, but it was magnified, multiplied, sped up until it became a whirl of constant noise.

They flew upward at a speed that likely would have made Kim barf, but Nanosounds was only partly Kim, so only a queasy feeling plagued her. The ride upward was not long but neither was it brief, taking enough time that she could grow used to the feeling only for her stomach to drop as the momentum abruptly dropped. The clicking grew discernible again and at last they reached their destination—the ceiling now simply high instead of unreachable—and Nanosounds peered up through the hole in the roof and saw starlight, shimmering white against a blanket of black.

“Wow,” she breathed.

She did not have long to appreciate the view. Abruptly, the stars winked out, and it was only when an amber eye peered down at her from the rafters above that Nanosounds realized the opening had simply been covered by a massive, onyx hide. Gold flashed, and Nanosounds recognized the five talons of an imperial dragon.

The dragon was enormous, long and slender like the lindworm had been, but whereas the lindworm had been beautiful yet ugly, the dragon was simply magnificent. Elegant stag horns curved from its heavy brow, the tines tipped sky blue, and as the creature moved, a blue sheen rippled across its flank. Blue, black, gold—the royal colors were not lost on Nanosounds, and for a moment she was temporarily overwhelmed by its majesty.

Then it dropped its head down, quietly confident as the coils looped tight around wooden beams, lowering itself until it could face them at eye-level. And it spoke.

“And so you seek to destroy me as you have destroyed my guardian.” Its voice was husky, neither clearly male nor female, but it was not overt enough to be categorized as “other”. Nanosounds had expected a clear voice, one that sounded as water running over stones. Instead she received a voice of rocks ground together, but the way of it was oddly pleasing.

“First time it’s done this,” came a soft mutter behind her. She recognized it as Alsmiffy’s voice, and Trott’s voice answered just as quietly.

“Maybe a patch? Someone swapped in alternate dialogue for a joke?”

And then last of all came Ross, his voice clear and confident. “Flux oracles, mate.”

“Ooooh. So you think it’s scripted to respond to Fluxers in a different way? Clever.”

The dragon watched them impassively. Its massive head tilted to one side, and it parted its jaws to speak again. “Even if you destroy me here, the gods will see your sins and have you answer for them. My blood shall be on your hands, humans.” Its muzzle twitched, the skin pulling back in a snarl and it added more forcibly, “But I will not die without resistance. Come, humans; show me your cruel might!”

If that wasn’t the start of a boss fight, then Nanosounds didn't know what could be. The dragon’s roar seemed to support her point, and she ducked and rolled away instinctively, her guandao trailing on the floor, sending up sparks, as the dragon dropped from its perch and lashed out with its heavy muzzle, jaws snapping shut inches from the flux oracle’s feet.

Then, abruptly, the dragon’s muzzle wrenched upward, a gurgle of protest escaping its throat before it overbalanced and flopped onto its side. Alsmiffy stood apart from them, his hands raised as he grappled with the holy beast’s will; sweat beaded on his face as the dragon squirmed like a beheaded snake.

But even as it struggled to free itself from his grasp, Trottimus and Ross were diving forward like a pair of hunting dogs coming in for the throat latch. Nanosounds joined them, trying to ignore the thought that threatened to distract her: _Why is a cleric subclass joining the front-line?!_

Her question was answered as Trott produced a pair of daggers from his coat, the blades long and pointed, perfect for stabbing and cutting in equal measures. G _uess that answers that,_  Nanosounds relented, dodging around the dragon’s left as Trott took right, plunging his daggers into the massive foreleg even as she swept her guandao down and under, slicing the tendon in its delicate armpit.

Driven mad with pain, the dragon howled, and Alsmiffy’s hold on it broke with a tinkling sound and a harsh grunt of pain from him as he toppled backward. The dragon shook itself, and Nanosounds darted away, arcing her guandao out from under it and sweeping the weapon out in a defense pattern dance. The creature growled but wasted no time in chasing her, instead lunging down toward Trottimus, who was far more defenseless with his blades embedded deep in the creature’s leg meat. He yanked one free, but the other held, and Nanosounds saw the dragon’s neck tense, curling back like a snake about to strike—but Ross was there, and Ross was a watcher.

His metallic wings spread wide, and the lunging dragon smashed its teeth against the resilient metal, screeches ripping from the metal until the wings flexed, and the dragon reared away, metal pinions embedded along its jaws. Then with one sweep of the wings—those massive, brilliant raptor wings, black chrome with neon blue thrusters that flared from the flight feathers—he was up and away, and the dragon spat out metal edged with blood before it swooped up after him.

It became an aerial battle then, and Nanosounds was suddenly far more useful than Trottimus, who instead went to tend to Alsmiffy, knocked down hard by the dragon’s overpowering will and still not fully healed from his earlier disemboweling. Ross took advantage of the range of her spells, ducking and twisting in midair, occasionally stalling his flight entirely, as he stayed just ahead of the dragon’s cruel talons and gaping jaws. Nanosounds lined up her shots carefully, knowing that the cooldowns on her abilities were too long and would drag the fight out.

It was all going smoothly, the way boss battles should, until her eye filmed over and the netcode was there. She didn't even realize what she had done until it was too late. The dragon screeched as her lance of purple struck, and it twisted in midair. The purple dug deep into its side and bloomed, forming a flower that sprung from roots sunk into the wound. And as they watched, as they all watched, the roots shuddered and sprang into its flesh, tearing through its scales, out one eye socket, wrapping around its jaws and tying snugly around its teeth. The dragon fell, corruption in the form of a purple-petaled flower eating away at its body.

The blood roared in her ears, and she was suddenly aware, so perfectly aware, of the way her heart thudded in her chest. The dragon moaned, agonizingly and miserably, its prune-black hide shuddering.

“What the fuck was that? What the shit did you _do_!?” Trottimus was suddenly there, in her face, his voice shock and fear and disgust all at once, and Nanosounds reached out for the friend-share, tugged it with all her might and thought, _Please help me!_ even as Ross dragged Trottimus off her. The watcher looked as shell shocked as his friend sounded, but he kept his calm, eyes darting quickly to the dragon’s body and the away. Alsmiffy was quiet, his constant banter sealed away as he looked on gravely, watching the dragon be eaten away by the plant that bloomed from it.

“Go find the life pearl,” Ross said, a request hidden in a command. They needed time alone, that much was clear. And as Nanosounds hoisted her guandao, looking up at the hole that once more glimmered with stars, Ross tugged Alsmiffy to his side, hiding the smallest of the trio from view.


	2. Crowned in Violet Carnations

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ahhhhh. this went really well up until the server crash and then i was all, “okay, how do we segue into the next bit???” and i got stuck there even though i really don’t have to make a pathway between this and the next story since that one takes place before oversoul was even released to the plebs of the world. but ya know.

The return trek was more difficult than Nanosounds had imagined. The boss fight hadn’t been completed properly—an absolute beginner to dungeons could see that. The entire process had been stalled, glitched out—except Oversoul had always been water-tight, and this small chip in the grinding of its gears hadn’t been planned for. So, yes, the way down the Tian Tower was unconventional and unplanned for and was, without a doubt, sloppy as hell.

With the floor-slash-elevator stuck on the top level of the tower, they had been forced to exit through the hole in the roof, dizzyingly high and standing on ceramic tiles that shone ghostly blue in the darkness of the end of the world. They were so far above the land that oxygen deprivation would have likely occurred if the server of Diyu had been one governed by the physics of the universe. Instead, it was simply cold. Cold and remote, and Nanosounds shivered as Ross silently helped her stand on the flat roofing.

From there it became a series of acrobatic feats. The roof was simply one of many, and where each floor ended, blue tile swept outward into the air. There were many, and some were far apart, but the only real difficulty came in the form of a persistent wind—and strangely, unnaturally, Nanosounds found herself thinking of Baihu, the white jade tiger who ruled the wind and arose from the metals of the world—he who protected the land from demons.

At last they reached the bottom, Ross carrying her down even as Alsmiffy lowered himself and Trott through the empty air. Touching the hard-packed clay ground sent a ripple of unease through Nanosounds; in the real world, Kim rubbed her hand along one arm, trying to smooth down the goosebumps that had sprung up.

“Right, well then,” Trott began, his forced cheeriness appalling apparent. The flux oracle looked at him and could read nothing more in his clattering beak or waving hands. Just a strange sour taste in the back of her mouth, persistent like metal water from the tap.

He took a step toward her, then took a step back just as quickly. “Right, well,” and he cleared his throat, swallowed and went on, “That didn't go quite to plan, so we don’t have much to give you right now.”

“That’s fine,” Nanosounds said. “Really, I don’t want anything, I just want to know more about—”

But Alsmiffy cut her off, slinging an arm around her neck. “Don’t worry, you’ll definitely be getting your pay. We’re not the type of guys who go back on our word. Give us your friend information, and we’ll shoot you a ping when we've got it all squared away, yeah?”

 _Liars_. She destroyed the rest of her hopes, thinking that one word. Even the answering reply from Lalna, a “Nearly there” scribbled comfortingly in the corner of her vision, wasn't enough to dissolve the lead that sat on her tongue.

Perhaps later, once they had calmed down, they would reconsider. In truth, Nanosounds didn't believe it. But she connected to them with a friend-link, and despite her heavy heart she smiled when she saw Ross’s actual in-game name.

“What sort of username is that?” she laughed, a bright little chuckle escaping her lips.

He smiled at her, gently, and gave up the answer willingly enough: “You see why they call me Ross.”

“That your real name?” She was curious; private information wasn't so private in a world cradled by social media from birth, where your virtual presence was as real as your physical one, but she had never come across someone who willingly used their real name in an online game before. Typically most people roleplayed.

“Yeah,” he said, ignoring the clack Trott sent at him. “These two are about as unoriginal as me. Smith is the worst.” And he grinned, a full smile that made the image of a corrupted flower eating into a dragon of heaven fade.

“Dude,” hissed the caught out Alsmiffy. “Don’t fucking tell her my real name.” The urgency in his voice made Nanosounds smile back at Ross.

“What, mate?” she chirped. “Scared I’m a hacker? Scared I’m gonna flux you right up?” And she made a guess. “Al Smith?”

The horrified look Alsmiffy gave her brought forth a bark of laughter, and Ross smirked. “And Trott is _his_ ,” and he nodded at the plague doctor, “last name. Bit more original than Alsmiffy.”

“Ross,” Trott groaned out. “You aren't running scripts, then?”

His shift in attention was sudden. _What a wiley walrus_ , Kim thought, and was immediately proud of the alliteration that floated into her mind, smooth as silk. Nanosounds blinked back at the plague doctor, the click-clack of his beak impatient for an answer.

“No,” she answered truthfully. “I didn't expect _that_ to happen,” and she paused. Considered. Continued: “I mean, you remember how I was when we fought the first floor’s monster. I didn't even know what the door was. All that other stuff happened after I found it.”

The soft clatter of the plague doctor’s beak urged her on, but caution tempered her words as the link that bound her to Lalna pulsed. Another message in the form of a nudge, used in the virtual world when the eyes were too busy to read words. Instead, she said slowly, “The flux oracle is probably the strangest class in the Oversoul, and I want to learn more about it. I’d like to speak to your friend, because he might know something.”

“No.” Alsmiffy’s voice was strong. “No offense, but we don’t even know you. We did a dungeon with you, and you managed to fuck that up. We get you the money you’re owed, and after that, you’re out of our hair.”

“But—” Nanosounds said, trying to be reasonable. Trying to keep her temper. Static flared in her ears, a rippling wave of white noise that rose suddenly.

Alsmiffy was unsympathetic. “No. You say you’re not a hacker but look at what you did to that fucking dragon. Like _hell_ I want to be near you when the mods come.”

Static, stuttering beats—nothing but scratchy, scrambling, in her ear, on her tongue—fuzzy.

“Smith,” Ross began, but again the psionic shook his head, cheeks flushed.

“Fuck,” Alsmiffy spat. “Fucking hell. You went too fucking far. They don’t care about the doorway, but—”

“Nanosounds,” the static said. Scratchy and throaty and tasting of steel. Moderator Baihu, their name clearly written in the coils of white jade that striped their metal-stone body, stood there. “You are the user Kim Richards, the character Nanosounds—.” The words were typed to her, its stone mouth lined with gleaming metal fangs. The fierce green of the server moderator’s eyes flashed; the words it typed out so slowly and dispassionately.

She couldn’t escape from the expanded user interface that forced her to see their words directly. Normally she could minimize the UI; most often she forgot about it. The moderator watched her, artificial intelligence clicking away in whatever passed for its mind.

The large robotic tiger twitched the tip of its tail and allowed its gaze to wander off her, passing over the men that stood still as statues. “Users of the characters Djh3max, Trottimus, and Alsmiffy—you are also found guilty of associating with a known abuser of the terms and conditions outlined by the world of Oversoul.”

“I fucking told you,” Alsmiffy growled through clenched teeth.

“Due to the irreparable damage caused to the game, the punishments have been upgraded to the highest level short of pursuing satisfaction for damages caused in the real world. As moderator of the Diyu server, I am the one who must administer the punishments. Each of you shall be killed, your characters erased, and your account and all IPs associated with it banned.” And for the first time, the mod’s expression shifted, its gleaming green eyes narrowing, its muzzle wrinkling up into a snarl. “If you should find some way to return to the Oversoul after this expulsion, you will be dealt with more permanently.”

 _This is insane_.

Fear curdled in Kim’s belly, and she swallowed hard, working to get saliva back into her mouth, back onto her tongue. A moderator, not to mention one that technically wasn't even real and was programmed to act like it was alive, was threatening her. Not just Nanosounds, but her specifically, Kim Richards. The absurdity of it all—between this, the dragon, the doorway, the netcode—and Lalna, telling her she couldn't die—she laughed.

“This is ridiculous,” she laughed out. “You’re not even real!”

Another stuttering of static steps and behind her was another moderator. “Fenghuang,” it sang out, lovely and graceful on its clattering deer hooves. “I am the August Rooster.” Its presence brought the scent of summer, and its gaze was one of fire, burning into Nanosounds’ back, warming her neck. “We shall both teach you the consequences of disobedience,” and its voice became stuttering static again, white noise that surrounded her.

And then there came the overwhelming scent of plasma.

“Kim!” The shout came from above, and both moderators jerked their heads up.

Nanosounds dove to the side, her guandao sliding cleanly into her palm. She brought her weapon up in a diagonal defensive position, the bladed edge resting just above the ground where she could easily bring it up in a slicing uppercut. The entire process took a scant second, and the flux oracle turned her own gaze skyward in time to watch Lalna plummet down, Robit spinning in his wake as the vehicle he’d leapt from dissolved into nothingness.

The technomage gripped lightning sabres in both hands, and the electrical blades sparked to life even as he drove them downward with force derived from his momentum and body weight. But as she watched, the sabres which had so often proven strong enough to cut through bone and muscle and metal and stone clattered harmlessly against Baihu’s hide, throwing up sparks.

Nanosounds whipped her head around to where her former dungeon-mates still stood, even as Baihu retaliated with a swipe of its paw, metal slicing through one sabre’s electrical blade to dig jade-tipped claws deep into Lalna’s arm.

“Help us!” she called, and then she drove her guandao upward to fend off Fenghuang, who came at her with beak outstretched, its coiling snake neck giving it reach that rivaled her polearm.

“Are you fucking insane?” Alsmiffy spat, but Ross was already moving toward her, scooping one metallic wing around her even as he used the other to buffet the bird moderator away. Fenghuang shrieked and its mouth opened wide, fire spilling forth and falling against the wing in scattered drops, earning a hiss of pain from Ross.

“Thanks,” she gasped, and spun out of his grip to drive her guandao toward the enemy in a jab. She gulped in another breath of air as the strike connected and sparks flew as it scraped metal beneath the fiery-red feathers. “Help us or we’re all going to _die_!”

Then she was dancing backwards as Fenghuang struck back, embedding its beak in the wooden staff above the bladed end and wrenching the weapon toward it, trying to yank it free of her grip.

“Oh no, mate.” was Ross’s flat assessment as he finally drew one of his own swords, blue-gray steel that rippled with with frozen waves. It was a plain weapon, but the reaction it drew from the Fenghuang was almost one of fear. “Water quenches fire,” Ross informed Nanosounds in that same uncaring voice, and when he swept the blade toward the moderator, it skittered out of the way, its wings unfurling with a snap of heated wind.

Before it could lift into the air though, it was unceremoniously dumped on its ass, tumbling across the desert floor like an unwieldy piece of tumbleweed, and Alsmiffy hissed in the flux oracle’s ear, “For fuck’s sake, why’d we get involved with you?”

“Don’t ask questions, mate, just fuckin’ smash ‘em!” With a whooping howl, Trottimus dove past the pair of them, gripping something Nanosounds couldn't see. He lobbed it at Baihu, who was being harassed by Robit, the spherical machine whirring angrily even as it emitted toxins useless against a mechanical animal. Lalna kept his robot between him and the moderator, bleeding heavily from one arm but otherwise unscathed.

“Lemme clear that up,” Nanosounds heard Trott quip as he reached the Technomage’s side, and then her focus was back on Fenghuang.

Alsmiffy’s telekinetic grip on it loosened, and he released it with a gasping pant, the bird cannonballing up into the air. “How the hell do you kill a mod?” he wheezed, eyes bright and feverish as he watched Ross chase after the moderator. “It’s not flagged for PvP.”

“I’ll do it,” Nanosounds told him. The thought had come to her suddenly. If she could scramble a boss mob, why not a literal moderator? And it wasn't as if she’d be actually harming a person; both the moderators they fought were artificial intelligence, likely backed up on a regular basis. So it wasn't like she was killing them.

Her throat felt raw, and she swallowed. “Just toss me up there. You can do that, yeah?”

“Yeah,” was Alsmiffy’s uncertain reply, but when she felt the tug of his psionic grip, she let him take her. His power was steady and sure, holding her as easily as gravity tugged her down and her skeleton and balance boosted her up.

“Now!” The command came out sharp and quickly turned into a scream of battle as she was hurtled through the air, the guandao in her hand resistant whereas the rest of her wasn’t. But none of that mattered; all that mattered was the netcode of the Fenghuang. Hidden in its center was a nest of intelligence, its actions and punishments and thought processes all derived from that center, which drew from a well further away, deeper away. Sever that connection, that link to the well it took knowledge from, and it would no longer know anything at all.

At least that was what Nanosounds hoped.

She flew past it at breakneck speed, and as she flew she stretched out her guandao, slipped it easily through the lines of metal programming that formed the chassis, and pierced the heart. She drove the tip through it, and as she slipped past, the guandao followed her, cutting through the heart, severing the link.

And for a moment, for a brilliant, blinding moment, the world flashed black and a voice of steel whispered, “God killer.”

_Connection has been lost._

True blackness. Flat, useless blackness, the kind that only came about when a server went down and the game disconnected you completely.

Kim sat there, breathing heavily.

She stood when at least she was able to force motion into her legs. The VR equipment she peeled off without thought, her head buzzing with thoughts that floated out of reach before she could grasp and manage them. She moved toward her desk, snapped open the crappy old laptop and booted it up. She quickly opened up the virtual wordpad, and that was where she ran out of energy and motivation, left staring at the blank white page without any thought on how to begin.

_What did I do?_

An insistent hum, the buzz of an ignored chat messenger, finally drew her out of the foggy depths of her mind. She clicked on it, almost relieved to be free of the empty notepad, and smiled.

“Are you okay?” was the first thing Lalna had asked.

 _Still got that goofy pop art icon._ Knowing his day job consisted of designing graphics and newsletters and various other pieces of media for a soul-sucking company lacking in creativity, she could understand why he chose such eye-popping art to decorate himself with in the virtual world. Still, the bubblegum blonde’s cherry red lips and wide blue eyes on his current picture cheered her up in a strange way, a splash of color in a day that had been doused gray.

“Just fine, mate,” she typed back. “Call me?” Better to talk to him. Even after a life spent divided between the virtual and the physical, his typing skills were still borderline atrocious. It was easier to go straight to voice than spend a few minutes dealing with his numerous typos and his tendency to spam corrections after them.

Kim clicked acceptance as soon as she saw the voice call pop up, and she leaned back in her chair as his voice warbled free of the shitty speakers, grainy and popping. At some point she needed to teach him about the old sock-over-microphone trick.

“Hey Kim,” he said, his voice reedy and high, not at all a match for the giant he’d shown her in pictures. At some point they’d have to do video chat, but she wasn't quite ready to accept him into the _people-who-have-seen-me-without-makeup_ club. Maybe after another month, preferably during one of their late-night chats when he was smashed from a few too many.

On the other hand, they had quickly switched to a first name basis.

“Hey Dunc,” she answered, self-conscious about the way her voice sounded, scratchy and dry. She wasn't dying of thirst; no, it was the aftereffect of fear.

“Kim,” he told her bluntly, “you sound terrible.” And then he laughed, bright and bubbly and totally at odds with how she felt about the whole situation.

“I did just crash the server,” she told him.

He giggled again, louder, and said, “I know right? That was amazing.” She was silent, and his giggles trailed off, finally ending with a gusting sigh that _whooshed_ out of her speakers, the crackling worse than ever.

“Betcha a scotch we’re banned.”

“More like I’m going to jail,” Kim shot back and forced herself to laugh.

“Naw,” Duncan protested. “They can’t send you to jail for that! It’s just shitty programming,” Then he hummed, a thinking sound, and said slowly, “What if that’s the reason they kill off flux oracles? The class causes a shitton of lag and fucks up the server and desyncs it and shit, but the game was _too big_ and, like, they paid the players hush money to not say anything about how shitty it was and drag Oversoul’s popularity down?”

Kim answered flatly, “Really? ‘cuz I sure as hell ain't seen any money, mate.”

Duncan made a _hmm-hmm_ sound, as if daring her to poke holes in his hare-brained theory, and she reluctantly giggled.

“Thanks, Lalna,” she said. She pushed herself back in her chair and sighed, arching her spine until it gave a satisfying crack.

“ _Eugh_ ,” came Duncan’s protest from the laptop. Kim ignored him.

“You know those guys I was with?” she asked instead. “They had a friend who was a flux oracle. Was thinking I could start there.”

His response surprised her. “No. Absolutely not.”

“Why not?” she asked. They had seemed harmless enough, and she had them on her friend list now. As soon as the server booted back up—and assuming she wasn't banned—she’d send Ross a message, seeing as Alsmiffy probably hated her guts now and Trott came across as a slimy weasel. _Or walrus_ , her brain supplied.

“Kim, look, listen,” Duncan said, in one of those tones. The " _'I've been playing this game longer than you so I know better"_ one. “Those guys have been playing this game almost as long as I have—” Yep, she knew it. “—and you should really not get involved with them.”

Kim rolled her eyes, glad for the lack of video chat.

“I mean it, Kim,” he said. Now she rolled her eyes harder, lifting up one hand and miming his stupid voice in a fit of childish tantrum. Just a few weeks and he knows me so well, she thought. “They've got a guild, a pretty big one. They’re joint leaders of Hatters; lots of player-ganking, raid-sniping—.”

“But they don’t cheat,” Kim cut in, remembering the way they had acted.

“No, they don’t cheat,” Duncan relented. “They do everything _but_ cheat, though. Hell, the mods probably went after you because you were with them. They've been wanting to nail that group forever.”

And _that_ sparked a question that Kim just had to ask. “Hey, Lalna, the mods are AI, right? Like, not real?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s some really advanced stuff, you know,” she went on, clinging desperately to the idea, scrambling to make sense of it in her head. “Most games have simple stuff, of course, but I've never seen it used for a security team.”

“Mmhm,” Duncan said, and his fingers thrummed against something wooden. “They made a big deal of it back when it first came out. Programs with the capacity to learn, is what they said.”

Now Kim was remembering it. PlayStation Access had done a few features on it, mostly blurbs on the website or in print, nothing big like an interview or an in-depth look at the features implemented and how they challenged conventional game design.

“We are so shit,” she groaned and flapped her hand at the laptop when Duncan yelped in outrage. “Not you and me; I mean my company. _Ugh_.”

“Oh,” was Duncan’s reply, pouty.

“It was a team who made them, right?” Kim continued. “They gave them the command to protect Oversoul and then taught them what sort of actions were good and how to deal with bad players. They used examples from other games, including videos, articles—.”

“They used real-life stuff, too,” Duncan cut in. “It was really big from, like, a psychology standpoint. They gave them some access to the internet and put them in with test players who were encouraged to act badly and break the rules and stuff.”

“Then in the end, they released them into Oversoul,” Kim finished. “With the caveat that any difficult stuff, they should take to the global mods since they’re human.”

“It’s worked out all right, so far,” Duncan said.

Kim said softly, “I don’t think it has.”

In a rush she told him of the voice that had whispered to her in the final moments before the server crashed, of the way the boss mob had responded to her—all of it, the netcode, the doorway, the glimmering well that connected to Fenghuang, feeding it—and by the end of it, they were both silent.

“So we've got killer robots,” Duncan finally said. His deadpan delivery made her snort.

“Jesus Christ,” Kim moaned. “We’re supposed to be having a serious moment here!” But with it all out in the open, it was easier to see the next course of action. “I really need to talk to one of the AI team.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Duncan agreed, voice light. Then he asked, teasingly, “So, think you’re about ready to pop on the old webcam for me?”

“Oh my god,” Kim laughed out. “You’re supposed to buy me dinner first!”

“There is online takeout,” was his innocent reply.

“Duncan!”

**Author's Note:**

> Classes mentioned:
> 
> **Warlock**  
> 
> 
>   * **Psionic** : Specialization revolving around psychic powers, typically focusing on control tactics over brute force. Psionics are only capable of spawning on servers based around futuristic technology, prompting some to wonder about a possible connection to the engineer class.  
> 
> 

> 
> **Cleric** : A class centered around the use of healing arts. Despite the class name, some of the specializations are geared toward combat rather than support.  
> 
> 
>   * **Plague Doctor** : Specialization focused around the use of crude and ineffective treatments, with limited healing capabilities but high debuffing skills. Unlike many of the other classes, plague doctors hold an innate resistance against most of the debuffs present in the game, making them useful as specialized defenders against bosses that rely entirely on damage-over-time skills.  
> 
> 

> 
> **Watcher** : A hybrid class with basis in mythology, the watcher combines the technical advancements of the engineer with the devastating physical capabilities of a knight. Metallic wings serve as both sword and shield, living-metal serving as the bones, allowing greater flexibility and range of movement. A watcher is a difficult class to play as it is incapable of attacking first, earning it the alternative name: guardian.


End file.
